Mastodon MET/Lepage Ring Cycle to get DVD/Blu-Ray released 9/9/12 plus much more - The Wagnerian

MET/Lepage Ring Cycle to get DVD/Blu-Ray released 9/9/12 plus much more

Written By The Wagnerian on Tuesday 7 August 2012 | 12:59:00 am

To be released by Deutsche Grammophon  on 9/9/12 the complete cycle will be available on 8 DVDs and 5 Blu-ray discs. Suggested retail price:  $147.98 on DVD and $159.98 on Blu-ray.

Press release from DG below video.

Surprisingly,  the much praised  documentary,  "Wagner's Dream" will not be provided in the "extras". Instead this is to be released as a separate DVD/Blu-ray. Also, being made available is a 2 CD "highlights" audio set - again to be sold separately.

DG have confirmed this is the start of their Wagner celebrations leading up to 2013





Wagner's Ring presents the ultimate challenge for any opera company, and the New York Metropolitan Opera's new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, unveiled between 2010 and 2012 and starring some of the greatest Wagnerian singers of today, is among the most ambitious Ring stagings ever mounted.

Already seen by over a million people in the theatre and at cinemas around the globe, the Met Ring was filmed live in high definition and is now being released on both DVD and Blu-ray to launch Deutsche Grammophon's celebration of the composer's bicentenary year in 2013.

With Bryn Terfel, widely acknowledged as one of the finest bass-baritones of our age, performing his first complete cycles as the embattled god Wotan and American soprano Deborah Voigt making her role debut as his disobedient warrior-daughter Brünnhilde, alongside international stars Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek as the incestuous Siegmund and Sieglinde, and last-minute stand-in Jay Hunter Morris -- a thrilling new tenor from Paris, Texas -- saving the day as the fearless but ill-fated hero Siegfried, the New York Times declared the cast "as strong a lineup of vocal artists for a Wagner opera as I have heard in years".

To complement the complete Ring cycle on both DVD and Blu-ray, Deutsche Grammophon is releasing two related titles: Twilight of the Gods, a 2-CD compilation of audio highlights from the Met Ring -- featuring all the major stars of the production and such famous extracts as The Ride of the Valkyries, Wotan's Farewell, the Magic Fire Music, Siegfried's Rhine Journey and the concluding Immolation Scene -- and Wagner's Dream, a frank and revealing documentary about the five-year making of the Met's new Ring that has already been acclaimed as "simply the best documentary about the Met ever made" (Film Journal), "a must-see for any creative soul" (Cinespect) and "destined to be one of the classic documentaries about opera" (Philadelphia Inquirer).